


tempus magus

by Salamander



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Community: ff_land, F/M, Gen, not quite dirty dirty threesomes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salamander/pseuds/Salamander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time sequestered in dusty towers does nothing for a young princess's learning, right up until she learns how to control time itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tempus magus

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Provided Word contest over at ff_land - the task was to use all of the words and phrases provided. They were on the theme of time, and while my own headcanon of Ashe isn't Time Mage (it's Warrior) according to Revenant Wings she is indeed classed as a Time Mage Extraordinaire. Also, I love the idea of her toting a crossbow and heavy armour. Mmf.

_Reflect_  
Huddling over dusty scrolls was the order of the day for the young Princess Ashe. Her lessons were held in a spiralling tower by a venerated sage, and though he never went quite as far as to rap her royal knuckles for bad behaviour, his words were enough of a slap to make her recoil into silence.  
  
“You are a late bloomer,” he mumbled to himself, “a disgrace on the royal name. I have never taught one as slow on the uptake as you.” He stroked his lengthy beard and stared past her, scrutinising the wall as if to find a student with more aptitude hidden there.  
  
She had no words, her defence just to hunch closer over texts on fire theory; to try cram the minutiae of Protect into her memory until her eyes spun.  
  
  
 _Reverse_  
She knows the true strength of Green Magick now – has learned enough to race against the clock with a swift Reverse, creating enough of a spanner in the works for her friends to exploit. Invaluable, Vossler would say as he skilfully inserted the point of his blade into a weak spot, and again, later, whispered into her neck and kissed into the palm of her hand.   
  
Her history is his, and he has been party to each frustration and dismissal from lessons until one -  
  
  
 _\- “slow,”_  
he said, “is an unworthy magick, and not one worth teaching.” He waved his hand as if brushing a speck of dirt from his personage, and turned the pages until they reached Dark, then let them settle open.  
  
“Ahh,” he exhaled, “and here we have something worth learning.” His crabbed fingers tapped the page. “Pay attention, girl, for in the Arcane school of Magick lies true power.”  
  
Ashe's mouth formed all the correct words in answer, but inside she burned for this 'unworthy magick' – whether it was out of pure contrariness she wasn't certain, but something about the glimpses of  _slow_  spoke to her more than anything else they had studied for five long years.  
  
  
 _Stop_  
A single gesture and her crossbow swings smoothly upwards, the butt firm against the meat of her shoulder and her keen eye sighting in a split second before the bolt looses and flies true into the heart of the Mandragora Prince drunk-staggering towards them.  
  
A gesture of her hand and it freezes –  _hastega_ , she whispers – and Basch takes the creature's head with one swipe, his fluid motion accentuated into beauty by her spell.  
  
Her eyes track his every movement until the magick drains from her blood. She comes down from the spell with Basch's hand heavy on her shoulder, her hand at his wrist and the beat of his pulse is the purest horology she knows.  
  
  
 _Graviga_  
There was a strange weight in mastering her field; one that lent her patience (to a degree), and an eye for dissecting a situation before it spiralled out of her control.   
  
Her tutor faded away into death, and Ashe settled into her role as Queen.   
  
Her tongue grew unused to speaking the words of her incantations, and her muscles began to forget the ache of heavy armour, the polished wood scent of her crossbow. Her fingers could no longer tug bowstrings into place, or carve bolts from fallen sticks, but the memories remained: a reflection in the mirror, the way the sun set  _just so_  to conjure images of Berserk-glow about her absent knight, or a spilling of red wine that brings, unbidden, the sight of blood as it pooled under her fallen.  
  
  
  
Sometimes, she wishes she could have frozen time – the ultimate Stop magick – and kept them clasped to her chest forever, relics of a fallen Dynast trapped in crystallised time.  
  
Sometimes, she wishes.


End file.
